Although I am personally in love with my SLR camera (its weight, robustness, optics, manual mode and its millions of possibilities), it is true that I am not disgusted by mobile photography in the context of any photographic process. We’ve already mentioned. A few times the undisputed advantages of mobile photography: it weighs little, it is very easy to use, but above all, it always accompanies us.
And that’s, for me, the main REASON why I think mobile photography should have the importance and creative space it deserves, because it’s no use having the best camera in the world if we don’t take it with us. make no mistake, we don’t always carry the SLR (Evil or what you have) with us, but I doubt you’ll leave your home without your mobile phone.
- So why not try to master one of the forces (and keys) of mobile photography?You know what I’m talking about? Exactly.
- To the composition ?.
At the technical level, when comparing the possibilities of an SLR camera (or ADVANCED OR compact), there are certain limitations that we have today when working with our smartphone, we do not have diaphragm, shutter speed or zoom (decent, is it included?), for example.
Instead, we have a lot of agility, dexterity, portability and immediacy. Most of the time, all you have to do is chase the image, the framing and the movie, the phone does the rest. That is why the weight of the image, its strength, falls, with light, in the composition.
In other words, who is the protagonist of my image. Is it a portrait, a landscape, a crowd, a building? Anyway, the first step in making a photo, whether it’s with a mobile phone or any type of camera, is to know what the focus of your image is and never lose sight of it. of it as it comes from where you will make all the decisions to structure your image.
The flexibility, size and portability of the phone allow us to work much more easily with different points of view when composing an image, because the phone is light and easy to handle.
Taking pictures from the ground from above (above), changing the shooting angle (up or down) will add interest to the image and completely change the way we perceive the image. Take the test, take an object, and photograph it from different angles. You’ll see the image change radically.
The rule of the third is one that divides the frame into three thirds both horizontally and vertically, where these imaginary lines intersect are the reflections of the image, it is in these places where the gaze is directed naturally and, therefore, where the focus of our image is placed enhances it naturally, knowing this rule and knowing how to apply it will be of great use to improve your composition , especially when you have few alternative elements to direct your gaze towards your protagonist.
Tip: Many camera apps on our smartphones allow us to add guides that divide the frame horizontally and vertically, allowing you to view the intersection points live, to guide you when sorting the elements it contains.
Lines are a key element of the composition, as they allow to guide the viewer’s gaze through the framing as if it were a luminous arrow. You have lines of different types, each inspiring a feeling in the viewer, from the sensuality, elegance and sinuousness of the curved lines, to the rigidity and strength of the verticals, or the calm of the horizontal ones, not forgetting the dynamism and strength of the diagonals.
When observing an image it is essential that the eye is not lost among the elements and that it easily finds what you want to highlight, if that does not happen it is because we have made a mistaken composition, or because we did not. put the focus in the right place, or because we don’t use the elements at our fingertips to display it correctly, or because there were too many elements around it that ended up losing it in the composition.
The simpler the narration of an image, the easier it will be for our eye to find what we want to highlight, it is also easier to place and highlight it, for example by color, negative space or the rule of thirds. shy, look for inspiration online, there’s a lot of mobile photography that follows this principle, all right?.
We have already raised it in the previous point, linked to the idea of simplification, we can rely on the use of negative space to highlight our protagonist. Negative space is a background with little information (can it be a texture, a color?) That highlights and highlights your protagonist, accompanies him, but takes nothing away from him.
The balance of the image is based on the visual weight of the elements, and their location in the framing relative to that weight. Most of the time, this weight is obvious to us: something that’s bigger than something smaller weighs more, something that’s closer than something that’s further away. But other times, this visual weight is not so consciously obvious to us, but we perceive it in a more subtle way, for example: an irregular shape weighs more than a normal color, a warm color weighs more than a cold color, or a single element weighs more than a set of them, to say a few. Here is a full article on this topic.
Learning to play with the balance, imbalance, ssis or dynamism of a scene is fundamental in composition, especially in mobile photography.
One of the big differences between a photograph and our real view of the elements is the dimensions. While we see in three dimensions, we can only recreate in two dimensions (still?). That’s why we often come across images that are flat or boring for us, who are missing something and don’t really know what it is. Many times it is this third dimension that we miss and that we can imitate through the game with different planes in the image, to give it depth and avoid this feeling.
The escape point is the place (real or imaginary) where two parallel lines intersect endlessly. Imagine the sidelines of a road, don’t they seem to be at the bottom of the picture?It is this place where they converge, what we call the escape point and that we associate with the depth of the image.
The colors in the composition are so important that they can justify, almost alone, the taking of an image. Know the complementary colors to enhance the contrast between the elements, play with warm and cold tones to increase the feeling of depth (the warm seem to approach, the cold ones move away) or to convey different feelings or moods.
Here are 20 tips for playing with color on your images that are sure to help you.
Another classic composition to add to your photographic background ?. To show with certainty the size of something, we must have something to compare it with, the most effective thing is usually to work with an element that we imagine or know the real proportions (for example, a person, a cat, a bullet?) And something we don’t refer to as mountains, trees?Scale helps us increase the sense of greatness of one and the smallness of the other, for example.
As human beings and therefore sociable beings, we are naturally attracted to other human beings, to include the human element in your images as a focus, to add a scale, or to add dynamism, it will increase the interest of those who observe your image naturally. So remember that a person (or even a reference to it as shoes), could be one more element of your compositions to consider?
What do you think of these tips? Come on, cheer up, I’m sure in a few days your own results will surprise you ?.
Oh, and if you found it useful, share it with anyone you think might be interested in. Thanks and see you next time.